Boyz in the hood

Kid #3, who's closing rapidly on five, has decided that winter means never taking your coat off. His teachers at preschool despair because he won't take off his coat, or put down his hood. He takes the coat off at home, because I'm meaner than his teachers, but he still won't venture outside without the coat on, its hood pulled snugly over his ears. Today it feels like spring, so I sent the kid outside without his coat. Five minutes later he popped his head back into the house.

"It's cold."

"No," I said. "It's not. It's seventy degrees out."

I could see the wheels turning in his head as he searched for a new tack. "The wind is very gusty, Mommy. The treetops are moving."

"You still don't need your hood."

"When it's gusty, I need my hood."

"No," I said again, more firmly this time. "It's a nice day."

"But it's really kind of frigid." (He actually said frigid. I swear.)

"It is not."

"And gusty. It's really gusty."

I pulled out Mean Mom, since Nice Mom wasn't getting results. "You. Don't. Need. Your. Hood. Get outside. Now."

He recognized Mean Mom's voice, and hustled outside. But he's still sulking out there in the back yard. He wants that hood. He needs that hood. A boy simply can't be expected to survive the horrors of a seventy-degree day in the dead of winter without his hood...

UPDATE: An hour later he stuck his head back in the house. "It's hot, Mommy. It's really hot. I'm all sweaty." He gave me his most pitiful look, looking like a basset hound whose tail's been stepped on. "When it's this hot, I really need my hood."